Coppery Brush-tailed Possum

Fascinating facts about the Coppery Brush-tailed Possum

• A possum's stomach has two chambers that ferment leaves like a cow's does — but the coppery brush-tail digests toxic eucalyptus and rainforest leaves that would poison most other mammals. Their gut bacteria can neutralise plant defences that would kill a human eating the same leaves in hours.
• At night, they make a sound like a chainsaw mixed with a growl — a territorial call so loud it can carry across 200 metres of rainforest. The call is so distinctive that Indigenous Australians named them based on the noise they make, not their appearance.
• Their tail is semi-prehensile and furred like a brush, used as a balancing pole when they move through rainforest canopy up to 30 metres above the ground. Unlike their southern cousins, coppery brush-tails have a stockier build and richer copper-brown coat, a sign they evolved separately in tropical rainforests for thousands of years.
• They're one of the few possums that can climb down a tree headfirst — their hind legs can rotate to grip bark at angles that would snap a human ankle. This makes them far more agile hunters of invertebrates and small vertebrates than their leaf-eating relatives.
• Female coppery brush-tails have a pouch that closes like a drawstring, and joeys stay inside for 4.5 months before emerging — longer than most other possums. After weaning, young stay with their mother for months learning which rainforest plants are safe to eat, knowledge that takes longer to master than in any other marsupial.

At a glance

About the Coppery Brush-tailed Possum

In the misty, moonlit forests of northern Australia, the Coppery Brush-tailed Possum weaves a subtle path, its tawny fur blending seamlessly with the rustling underbrush as it forages for leaves and fruits with delicate precision. With each lithe, arboreal bound, it embodies the very essence of nocturnal elegance, its large, round eyes shining like lanterns in the dark as it navigates the intricate network of branches and vines with effortless ease. As it moves, the possum's brush-tailed silhouette dissolves into the dappled shadows, leaving behind only the faintest whisper of its presence, a ghostly apparition haunting the forest's secret places.

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